The present invention relates to an industrial vehicle in which the power of an engine is transmitted to drive wheels through a power transmission mechanism and in which creeping of the vehicle occurs.
There has been a vehicle which is provided with a power transmission mechanism that transmits the power of an engine. In the vehicle, the power transmitted through the power transmission mechanism causes creeping of the vehicle (see Japanese Unexamined Patent Application Publication No. 2001-323826). Such creeping is useful for starting a vehicle smoothly.
An industrial vehicle such as a forklift truck may have an engine mounted immediately below the driver's seat due to the limited size of the vehicle. In such vehicle, the driver's seat is subjected to the vibration of the engine. Therefore, there has been a demand for controlling the engine vibration. Furthermore, the engine of the forklift truck that may be used for loading operations near a rack or the like is required to operate with stability during the loading operations with the forklift truck being at a stop. The idling speed of the forklift truck may be set relatively high for the purpose of suppression of the vibration and stabilized operation of the engine of the forklift truck.
The creeping occurs also in an industrial vehicle, such as a forklift truck, if the power transmission mechanism of the engine of the vehicle includes a torque converter and an automatic transmission. Therefore, in the above case of the forklift truck in which the idling speed is set relatively high, the vehicle is required to creep at a desired stabilized speed so that loading operations may be performed safely near a rack or the like while the forklift truck is at a stop or traveling at a crawling speed.
The present invention, which has been made in view of such problems underlying the background art, is directed to providing an industrial vehicle that achieves a desired creeping speed.